Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

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A few years after composing Metastasis, Xenakis was asked by Le

Corbusier to suggest a design for the architecture of the Philips Pavilion

for the World Exhibition in Brussels. Xenakis took up the Metastasis idea

of ruled surfaces and transferred it back to architecture, designing and

calculating the walls of the Pavilion as ruled surfaces. Fig. 2.2. shows a first

model of the Philips Pavilion, which was built in reinforced concrete in

In this building, the sounds of Edgar Varèse's Poème electronique were

heard from 350 loudspeakers in the curved walls. After the exhibition, the
Pavilion was demolished.

Atmospheres - A vibrating space of timbre and movement

The composition of events, states and transformations is developed and

refined in Ligeti's orchestral work Atmospheres (1961). This is music without

melodic or rhythmic gestalts, and without clearly discernible pitches and

durations. Atmospheres is a flow of sound. Subtle changes in timbre,

intensity and movement create auditory impressions of variable sound

masses appearing and disappearing, approaching,

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passing and withdrawing. Sheets and layers of sound are revealed or

superimposed, illuminated and darkened, changing in color and density.

Atmospheres is scored for 4 flutes, 4 oboes, 4 clarinets, 3 bassoons and

contrabasson, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, piano and strings

(14,14,10,10,8). An excellent recording of the work is the one by the SWF

Radio Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden conducted by Ernest Bour,

issued on CD by Wergo and CBS, duration 8'33. Some characteristic

musical occurrences are the following:

Atmospheres

0'00 Sound emanates "out of nowhere", gradually changing in color,

nearly disappearing... 0'53

0'53 ... emerging, vibrating and growing, 1'18 being illuminated, 1'26

approaching, 1'45 brightening ... shimmering, 2' 00 dissolving ...

2'15 ... gently oscillating, 2'30 darkening ... 2'50 thinning out

2'56 ... trembling, 3'16 rising towards a high extreme ... 3'50

3'50 Sudden fall into darkness; 4'06 waves of transparent sound

gliding upwards and downwards, 4'40 growing and rotating,

4'46 slowing down

4'50 Subtle separate movements, 5'00 condensing in a few substantial

tones in rising motion, 5'11 penetrating, sharp intrusions, 5'43

receding in static sound, disappearing ... 6'35

6'35 Blowing; faint trembling, 6'53 strands of light, 7'06 waves of glit-

tering sound spectra, 7'34 darkening, disappearing ... 8'33.

This music creates impressions of height and depth, distance and proxi-

mity, transparence and density, brightness and darkness, stasis and

motion. Sensations of rise and fall are created by the massed pitches of

clusters moving high up and deep down, even if no single pitch height

stands out separately. Subtle oscillations, vibratos and tremolos add a

living quality to static or slow-moving sound. Impressions of varying

distances of sound events and of sound approaching and receding are

created by differences in attack and intensity. Sharply attacked tones seem

to protrude, softly initiated sounds seem to emerge far away or at an in-

definite distance. Crescendos create the impression of sound coming

nearer, diminuendo sounds seem to move away.